Happy Halloween! We’re celebrating with this ghoulish poppet (or voodoo doll), on show at the Ashmolean museum’s Spellbound exhibition. This eerie figure, found in South Devon, was made in the image of the desired victim. Through the power of cursing magic, whatever fate that was bestowed upon the effigy would be felt by the real-life counterpart, in this case that appears to be a rather nasty headache caused by a pin pushed clean through the head! Though cursing is usually considered the practice of professional witches, in actual fact a remarkable amount of everyday people would use poppets to right mundane wrongs including disgruntled husbands, vengeful friends and impatient landlords.
